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Less then halfway through this book it easily became one of my favorite books and definitely my favorite Jeff VanderMeer book. Ambergris comes alive here in a totally new way, revealing hidden depths and strange new Burroughs. It has the sense of richness of the previous Ambergris books but with an added sense of immediacy and truancy as it's a detective novel. A very hard boiled detective novel that reads more authentic and original then many contemporary "straight" noirish detective books. For me, something really clicked having Ambergris as a Victorian, steampunk, fungal, occupied city (Finch takes place one hundred years after Shriek.)
While you still have a sense of dislocation of an urban, New Weird story this story draws you in in an emotional level; unlike any other New Weird story I've read. The characterization is more compelling and more real. The city is broken in a way that that seems real and elicits sympathy.
An amazing ending.
